


the book of hours

by omphale23



Category: due South
Genre: Challenge fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-15
Updated: 2010-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It was guilt that barely registered and tasted like longing and was sweeter than she expected.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	the book of hours

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **stop_drop_porn** for the prompt _igloo_.

After the divorce, it was easier. Once the papers were filed, the furniture divided, the keys returned, she could say no without the sting of guilt tempering her rejection. She could say yes, if she chose.

If there was guilt, if it lingered, it was the kind that came with missing a phone call, with forgetting a name. It was guilt that barely registered and tasted like longing and was sweeter than she expected. For a few weeks, Stella amused herself by naming all the things that guilt might taste of, _lemon tea, and old books, and campfire smoke_, before finally deciding that it tasted of snow and putting the question aside.

They'd still get together; Ray would look at her over an empty table or lean into her under a doorway and Stella would think, _maybe, maybe, yes_, and they'd both smile. The next morning she'd wake to Ray's fingers painting words in the small of her back, his breath ghosting over her hips. Ray would graze his teeth along the bones of Stella's spine and she'd close her eyes and know that she wanted this, now, and would have it. She'd twist beneath his hands, arch into the sheets and lift toward Ray's mouth, greedy for what he gave and knowing that desire could come without strings.

She'd take him back to her place, her own rooms, and unlock the door and they would make it all the way to the hallway, sometimes, and to the kitchen, others, and no further than the snick of the lock and her skirts wrinkled around her waist, twice—had she been counting. But who would hold that against her when Ray knew just where to scrape his callused thumb beneath her ribcage, knew that she liked the pull of his fist in her hair, the sting of teeth across her collarbone? There were nights when Stella decided that the uneasy bitterness of burned coffee and avoiding his calls didn't mean more than her thighs locked around Ray's waist as he stumbled them both into her bed. If guilt was a flavor, it was easy to swallow.

Other nights she would say no, shrug her shoulders and shake her head and go home, or out, or wherever she wanted. Stella didn't think about whether it was fair to Ray, because she had the signatures that told her it didn't matter now, Ray's happiness was no longer her fault.

After the end, it was simple.

It took years to get to this understanding, years of crawling into bed so tired that her eyes drifted shut even as Ray moved inside her. Years of falling into a doze on the couch and pretending to dream, hoping to avoid the look in his eyes when she wanted sleep more than anything. Years of being pained, relieved, when he drew the night shift three weeks running, because the only thing that kept her vertical through the sludge of depositions and meetings and docket-shuffling was the thought of her pillows and the heavy weight of the duvet, waiting for her. It took years of running through lists of witnesses as she kissed Ray before bed and startled into arousal, doubled over with the competition of duty and lust, unhappy in the knowledge that she was the sort of person who would take more than she gave.

She spent half a decade unbalanced and Stella breathed, the moment that she folded the pages that broke her life apart, knew that she'd sleep well that night.

Long before that, it was years of wanting Ray, needing him in ways that clawed and ached. She hadn't known how to ignore the hollow surprise of it; the sudden rush of _we've never, he could, how long until, more than this_, sometimes led her to sneak out of lectures and away from campus.

She'd given into the temptation as often as she dared, caught in the longing to push Ray up against a stairwell door, her nails shaking over his zipper as she dropped in front of him, licked over his dick and wound her fingers around the base. She'd lost herself in the slick of her tongue around him, in the tease of teeth as she taught herself to swallow around his thrusts, to relax into the shift of his hips under her thumbs. Stella thought, back then, that nothing would ever beat the feeling of watching Ray's hands skitter over the bricks, his breathing harsh and uneven as he tried to choke back her name, the way he looked at her like a promise as she grinned up at him, hands already smoothing his clothes back into place.

The rush of winning her first case came closer than she expected. It should have been a sign, or a warning.

She'd thought, when they were young and awake and new to responsibility, that it would always be like a staircase. Stella had believed that she would always look up from her textbooks and bite her lip, drag her foot up Ray's leg and smirk when he startled into a moan. She'd spent weeks, months, imagining her marriage, the expanses of their _first, tiny, no room to turn around, no space to breathe_, apartment perfect for draping herself across the bed, heart hammering in her chest as she waited naked for Ray to come home in his starched new uniform. The week that he'd graduated to patrolman, Stella met Ray at the door wearing fishnet stockings and a ribbon around her wrist, and as they shifted into each other that afternoon, he whispered into her ear, _forever_, and Stella believed.

She didn't believe in anything, now. But she built herself a space, and if Stella heard the murmurs, the secretaries who thought her cold, she ignored them. She settled into comfort, her desires still and small and with no corners to catch her heart. She took what she wanted, and was grateful that it had all become so smooth in the end.

And so, when Ray took a new name and stopped knocking on her door, stopped watching her cross the room, Stella could perhaps be forgiven the time it took her to notice how very complicated he had become. She could, maybe, forgive herself the sudden lingering taste of ashes.


End file.
